The Ultimate Snackfood

Due to being out of town in Seattle (of which I shall blog about later), it had been some time since I've been to my garden. Ben and I went there this afternoon, and good thing we did! It was high time to harvest some of our vegetables, especially the peas.

The vines were bent over backwards with all of the peas, the pods plump and ripe. We filled an entire big mixing bowl to overflowing, and that doesn't include the ones we munched as we went along. To tell the truth, we hardly made a dent in the pea patch, but it's a start.

Now I love garden peas, it's the only way I'll eat 'em. Growing up I was notorious for eating out all the ones from Granny and Grandpa's garden whenever I came to visit. Picking all of those peas today was fun, and Ben got pretty thrilled with them too.

Yet it was only after we got home and I had three children (only one of which was my own) hanging around gorging upon peas that started me thinking. Fresh garden peas are the ultimate snackfood for a variety of reasons. Here's just a few aspects about them that make them so great and appealing to kids:

Creative - every kid can think up numerous ways to crack open those pods.

Fine Motor Skill - getting to the peas takes some ingenuity.

Environmental - comes in it's very own, biodegradable packaging.

Therapeutic - the repetitive motion of getting them can be very soothing.

Nutritional - they're good for you and I'm just lucky that I have some left for supper.

The peas were such a big hit I saved some for a snack for tomorrow when we go to the park. But with a large pea patch groaning under the weight of their crop, it's a lucky thing that my kids enjoy fresh peas so much. I foresee us eating a lot of them in the foreseeable future.